Vladimir Tretchikoff

In my workshop I have a few wall hangings of pieces that otherwise would be dumped or stored in boxes. A couple came from our son Martin's place when he went east to Melbourne. Martin has a good eye for discarded stuff on the roadside chuck-outs which he calls 'GutterMart'. One piece is a Marx Brothers poster and the other is a print of a 1950s artist...Vladimir Tretchikoff. Martin's print is a bit damaged and so it lurks in a darker area of my shed. Tretchikoff was very popular in the late 1940s and 1950s. Thousands of houses had a print of the Chinese Girl. Wonder where they are all now? You can buy prints of Tretchikoff's works on eBay and art shops at reasonable prices.

This is a framed end of a Petrol box from the days when petrol was imported into Australia in boxes of One Gallon cans. I wonder whether they were American gallons or Imperial gallons?

How not to look a gift horse in the mouth

I get my Mac computer discards from various sources and some of them are a little precious when it comes to the actual donation time. One lot was given with the proviso that they wouldn't be sent overseas. I had to inform that source that whilst I assure people that they will not be sold but distributed to needy folks I could not be bound by any conditions of how and where I distribute them. It is really like donating your body to a University....you don't know what will happen to it and medical students may well play pranks with your bits.

A recent lot was of older Macs, all still work well, but their capabilities are more in the educational games area. I can gift them to young families with a large package of educational software. I would rather folks not give me these older machines as most of my 'clients' want reasonably fast machines to browse the internet (and find reviews of books they were supposed to read at Uni).
Oldies, but goodies.
Just when I think I will stop this project, I get an offer of a new lot of machines, then back to work. I have been doing this for around eleven years and estimate that I have refurbished and distributed free, around 400+ computers to needy folks and a couple of schools overseas.

The Wedding of Brian and Lili

On Friday evening I took photos (along with every other guest) at my nephew Brian's small wedding. It did present a few difficulties with lights everywhere, but there are some reasonable shots and once all the other guests give their photos to the the happy couple they should have a nice album albeit of very similar photos. I did the make-up shots; the best man fixing the groom's tie shots etc etc. The bride, Lili, had a few ideas for some other shots which could have been better executed with more time and equipment...but they did work.

Maybe I will post more photos here when I have asked the married couple for their permission.

The wedding breakfast (it seems to be called a breakfast even if it is at night) was catered for by Dorothy, Brian's mum. The name 'Breakfast' for a post wedding meal is more to do with breaking the fast.

Brian and Lili are to have a second very large wedding in the Philippines either later this year or early in 2013. Lots of rellies to witness their marriage.

Larousse Gastronomique

It is over one year since my Joan died and I have been losing my appetite for food and cooking. I seem to cook too much and then freeze the remainders which end up going into the compost bin. Time for a new plan. Supermarkets don't cater for singles like me, the smallest meat package is enough for several people, so I will divide any purchase into serve size portions and again fill the freezer with the rest. Also I could share with Helen and James, but Helen cooks more exotic fare than me.

Joan has at last count 83 cook books including Larousse Gastronomique and folders of collected recipes. Each time I search for a recipe in the recipe library I find it difficult to get what I want out of those 83 books, but when I Google a recipe I will get an immediate and specific recipe. I wouldn't have the heart to sell Joans books but I don't think anything in Larousse would interest me much. So I will leave Helen and Martin to sort that out when I go...along with lots more complex issues. Hey, I'm not going just yet!

Larousse is 'the world authority on food, wine and cooking' which is a bit insular because it doesn't discuss Asian cooking for example. Just in case you thought you would like to purchase Larousse, here is a page from the section on cooking offal.
A bit dreary hey?

Men in Film

And now for something entirely different....a fill-in because I don't have anything significant to write about.


Film buffs will probably get every one first time through.

RIP Carole

After a hard fought battle with cancer, Carole in London has passed on. She died peacefully in a Hospice in London and her son James has written of her passing. If you wish you can read it here.

Brian and Lilly

This Friday evening, my nephew Brian and his bride to be, Lilly, are to be married. It is a small wedding with just a dozen guests including me. I have been asked to take the photographs which is going to be a tricky business. The wedding is in Joan's sister's backyard at 7.30pm and that means complete darkness at this time of the year. I have done a number of weddings, but none have had me thinking things out like this one. I will today purchase some floodlights on a stand and do some experiments in my own backyard tonight. The floods will need to be softened with some filtering media and the judicious use of a flash to fill in shadow areas.

I have not shot a wedding in 15 years and I want this one to be as good as I can make it. At least with digital cameras, these days, I can instantly see whether the result is OK after each shot. In the past when every photographer was using film, there was a nervous wait to see the results after the film was processed and printed. I can also tweek the photos in Photoshop on the computer. Wish me luck.

Red Boy stolen

"They got a name for the winners in the world
And I want a name when I lose"....Steely Dan

I recently posted a story about my visit to the Sculpture by the Sea exhibition at Cottesloe Beach. The exhibition is not fenced off, but has security guards, CCTV and plenty of lighting. One of the installations (see, I can use the artists' terminology) was stolen by a young fellow just 24 years of age under CCTV cameras in a well-lit area. The cameras even captured the ute/pickup truck he was driving without a licence. It wasn't too difficult for the cops to trace our man and they found the severed statue in the roof-space of the family home. Mother, of course, was embarrassed and shamed and didn't want to be identified.

Sister Shirl's visit

My sister Shirley is staying with me this week. She is up from Esperance which is on the South coast of Western Australia. She came up ostensibly to attend a reunion of a volunteer fire brigade that she and her late husband Don were associated with. Today I drove her out to the reception centre at Jandakot Airport and went home to wait for her phone call when the show was over. By the time I arrived home there was a message on the phone from Shirl to say that the reunion was yesterday. Duh!

During the week she got me to take her to a large shopping centre to buy some bras. I have never accompanied anyone buying bras before and suddenly I was by myself and couldn't spot Shirl anywhere. I didn't realise that it is not as easy as buying a seven pack of underpants. Apparently they have to be carefully selected and fitted. Taking into account the airfare for Shirls Perth reunion, those bras were very expensive.

In the time I waited I could have bought a suit, had it altered and selected a new pair of shoes and an assortment of socks.

Shirl is returning to Esperance tomorrow and that will give my liver a bit of a rest as we have been doing the rounds of family drinkies.

I get an infrequent visit by neighborhood cat. It is a sleek black one with a white tip on its tail. It doesn't hesitate to come in the house and check out all the rooms and any cupboards left open. We get along fine and I reckon it is the best pet I have ever had....no feeding, no veterinary fees etc etc.

A distant friend

My Cyber-friend Carole in London has been moved into a hospice. Her son has written of the move on his mother's blog, which can be found here. She has had a rapid deterioration in her situation over a relatively short time and it is most likely that she will pass away very soon. I sincerely hope that her passing will be peaceful. I know that thousands of people die every day around the world, but Carole, through her kind words and thoughts for my Joan in her fight with the BigC has become a close friend.

This morning when I opened my email program I found a message purporting to be from The Commonwealth Bank NetBank. It informed me that a successful money transfer had been made for the amount of $1,580.00 to someone I did not know. I figured it was a scam and didn't click on the link provided, instead rang NetBank and they informed me that it was indeed a scam and by lunchtime EST, there had been approximately 500 calls to netbank about this email message. I am unsure what would have happened had I clicked on the link, but it probably would have been an expensive move.

Here is a screen shot of the email message.

A good word for Bigpond

Joan's sister Dorothy recently had a scare with a positive from a breast screen. She was able to have a Lumpectomy which removed the cancer and one lymph gland . A follow-up consultation brought good news and her oncologist is confident that they had been successful. She will be having a week's worth of radiation and be on a daily medication for 5 years.

There are many bad stories about Telstra/Bigpond's help line for computer worries. Over the weekend I had the job of setting up a wireless modem for a friend of my brother. The modem is a BigPond modem about the size of a packet of TicTacs. I was having all sorts of difficulty which was my own fault. I repeatedly typed in her email address which was hand written on a piece of paper. Un-noticed by me was a period/full stop between her first and second names. It must have looked like as bit of fly poo to me and so I hadn't keyed it into any of my attempts at creating the account. Sooooo, I decided to ring Bigpond help. I was talking to a young fellow in the Phillipines and eventually after he made several attempts to activate the account he asked me to take a careful look at the email address again. There is was. He entered that correct address and it was up and running. At that stage I asked him for mail details such as incoming mail server etc so that I could set up Apple Mail for her. He probably correctly assumed I was a complete dummy and told me to sit back and he would remotely set up Mail and anything else I wanted help with. Sounded good to me and I watched as things were moved around on the screen remotely from an office in the Philippines. I do know about several applications to do this, but I have never seen it done. A very pleasant young guy who was worthy of some award.
Thanks Bigpond.

Sculpture by the Sea 2012

Yesterday we, Helen, James and I visited Cottesloe Beach to view the Sculpture By the Sea exhibition. Joan and I had been to each of the yearly events since its inception. There were many 'installations' as the arty call them and some were really quite clever. My choice was the windmill which was a very modern chrome piece with a number of propellers of different lengths rotating on different axis at different speeds. More mechanical beauty than 'art'! Cottesloe Beach is a very popular beach without the large waves of beaches further along the coast. The Indiana Tearooms looks over the beach and is also the the boatshed of the Cottesloe Surf Lifesaving Club.

I took lots of Pics and here are a few. I couldn't remember the actual titles of each and so have called them as I saw them. Should have bought a catalogue.

click on the pics to enlarge them.

correction?

Graham, my 'sub-editor' of the blog has corrected me on my assertion that President Obama's appointment of four Republicans to his cabinet could not happen in Australian politics.

As usual he is correct and this is the reason that I have welcomed his sub-editorial role. I imagine that most bloggers have a sub-editor. It is good to have constructive criticism. The little I know about politics, does however, make me a little cynical about such appointments.

See his email to me on the subject......

Kev  You said in your blog that one thing you will never see in Australia is the kind of bipartisanship that saw Pres Obama appoint four Republicans to his cabinet.  Of course, the US cabinet members all come from outside the legislature (Congress), or if they are in it, they resign before their appointment.  In Australia, to become a member of cabinet you have to be a member of parliament and usually a member of the governing party or coalition, though that latter bit is not required.  You would have to, at least, guarantee that you would support the government in votes in the parliament.  Sometimes members of the parliament change sides, though it is very rare.  Remember when Cheryl Kernot of the Democrats joined the Labor Party?  It turned out later that she and Gareth Evens were having an affair at the time.  Billy Hughes was a member of three parties (Labor, UAP and Liberals-I think it was those three) during his time in parliament.  When asked why he had never joined the Country Party he famously said that he had to draw the line somewhere.  When Kevin Rudd became prime minister, he appointed Brendan Nelson as Ambassador to the UN, Alexander Downer to a special role with the UN on Cyprus and Tim Fischer as Ambassador to the Vatican.  That is an impressive form of bipartisanship.  John Howard was known for his obsessive overseeing of all appointments his government made to ensure the appointee had no Labor connections, however remote.  Graham

Early tomorrow we are visiting Cottesloe Beach to view the Sculpture by The Sea exhibition.  Joan and I visited it every year it has been held.

Some good news

Daughter Helen is starting to get relief teaching work. She now has two regular days at a nice school for the rest of this term, plus usually another one or two days when people ring in sick (or tired/hungover). She is pretty happy with that amount of work.

I rang the agent who is looking after my unit at Orelia. I had not heard from her since the tenants had a small fire in the unit destroying the stove. The tenants went out leaving a plastic cutting board on the hotplates which were left on. Fortunately, downstairs neighbors noticed the smoke and had to break the door down to put the fire out. She told me that the insurance company finally replaced the door yesterday and the stove would be replaced very soon. There is a $200 excess on the claim, but the tenants have accepted blame for the fire and are happy to cough up the $200. Good tenants!

Today I contacted Student Services at Murdoch University to offer refurbished computers to this year's new lot of students. They were keen and I have to make up a flyer and get it approved before putting it on a student notice board. I have had previous Murdoch students take machines and been very happy with them.

Helen and James and the kids (their dogs, Ruby and Rosy) are coming around to my place this evening for a curry meal. I have cooked two different curries and they are very nice. I still have to prepare some condiments to accompany them. The dogs aint gettin any curry.

Politics.

Well, it's all over. The attempted coup-d'etat of the office of Prime Minister has failed and we are back to boring old government. For a while there I felt a little like a third-world citizen. A bit exciting actually!

I don't know much about politics and I confess to knowing little of the politics of other countries. Australia has a British Parliamentary System and it seems to work reasonably well most of the time. It is said that we don't elect our Prime Minister as the U.S. elects its President, but by the time the election is underway everybody knows who will be the Prime Minister depending which side of the two major parties wins.

We don't have a first past the post system; preferential voting is used here. Check out Preferential Voting if that interests you.

There are two major political parties and a few minor parties and a handful of independents. The current government is able to govern only with the support of a few independents and a minority party who have pledged their support by demanding trade offs with their own agendas.

One thing you will never see in Australian politics is a bi-partisan gesture as done by Barack Obama the U.S. President, when after his election, he appointed four opposition party members (Republicans) to cabinet posts in his government.

Australia is a big place and we have a population of only around 22,000,000 and that doesn't count the 50,000 illegals here.

One year

Yesterday, the first anniversary of Joan's death, passed with a few tears all round from me and Helen and James. We set a glass of bubbly for Joan on the dinner table.

I received messages of condolence from quite a few of our friends including a wonderful poem written for me by our friend Joy.

It is said that the first year is the hardest.

Passionfruit

I have a jungle area of my yard with Passionfruit vines, Paw Paw and Lemon.
The Passion vines have gone feral and I hope the neighbours on two sides are pollinating the flowers to get a good crop for themselves. I don't seem to have a lot of bees here and so I do the job myself with a soft brush.

How things have changed in my lifetime! When I was a lad I remember newspaper and radio stories about the sudden disappearance of a Soviet political character from the lineup on the balcony at a parade of goosesteppers. Another story that featured for some time was the phenomenon quite unknown to us in the west, of the Workers Creche in the Soviet Union. Now we have both. Our Prime Minister is about to be challenged by the bloke she deposed a couple of years ago....and the childrens day care centre (creche) is all the go in western society.

The Big C

This Saturday is 12 months since Joan left us. We do not need a special day to remember Joan, she is in our thoughts every day. Helen, James and I will get together and talk with our son Martin who now lives in Melbourne

Dorothy, Joan's sister, rang me a couple of days ago to tell me that she had been diagnosed with a malignant lump in her breast. She is to have a Lumpectomy tomorrow and the surgeon has told her that as it is a stage one cancer, the Lumpectomy and some followup radiation will give a good result. Hope he is right.

I have mentioned before, Carole, who lives in London. She gave great support to us during Joan's fight against cancer. She has also been battling cancer and now it has suddenly spread to her bones and another organ. She has only months to live and whilst I try and offer comfort, I find it hard to gather suitable words.

Carole's blog can be found here.

A bright young gal

I recently delivered a Mac laptop and a printer to a young Aboriginal gal. She is young....probably about 20 and has three children, two in school and one babe. I am unsure of her situation, but she is being looked after by a welfare organisation and is housed, at least temporarily, in a large block of units. She has never used a Mac computer before but seemed to grasp the basics of the operating system in minutes. She told me she was off to buy a USB modem the next day and I am sure she is on line now. The welfare agency told me that she wanted to return to studies and complete her education. Hope it works out for her.

Hyundai Elantra

I had my car serviced yesterday. It is the 1500 kilometre service which is free. I delivered the vehicle to the service centre on Tuesday afternoon so that mechanics would have more time to try and sort out the stalling problem I am experiencing.

Early Wednesday afternoon I received a phone call to tell me that the car was ready to collect. When I asked if they had fixed the problem I was told that the mechanics could not get it to stall and so they had reset the parameters on the gearbox and the fuel system and that will almost certainly cure the problem. Then came the 'silly old bugger' statement telling me that if it hasn't fixed the problem I should bring the car back and drive it with one of their mechanics in the car to see if I was driving it in way that was causing the problem. Bloody hell! I don't think I can win on this one unless I leave the car with them to let a mechanic take it home over a couple of days so there is a good chance the problem will present to him/her.

Late News: The problem is still there and I am getting very frustrated with the inability of the service centre to fix it.

StopPress: I have just received this email message, so I will do as my brother Graham did....get rid of this car and collect my BMW and the 1 million British Pounds.

Daughter Helen got her first day of teacher relief yesterday. Usually relief teachers get most of their work during the winter months.

Junior technician jobs

The remote control showing the rubber function buttons.

In my bathroom I have a remote controlled heater light and exhaust fan. It must have been installed after the hard wiring had been done. It works well!
On Sunday evening I came home from Helen and James' place after helping them with their fish pond and having a few beers. A few??

After eating some supper I fell asleep in a chair waking at 10.30pm. I went to my en suite bathroom and turned on the fan and the heater light and then dropped the remote controller on the floor damaging it so that it would not turn off the fan and light. Damn! I tried turning off the mains lighting circuit and turning it on again...no go, the heater light was still on. I figured that I could get a ladder and remove the heater bulbs, but the fan would still be running.

So I dismantled the remote and found that a battery contact had fallen out of the circuit board. How can that happen? I repositioned the battery contact and it worked well enough to turn everything off. The next morning with steadier hands and a soldering iron I re-soldered the contact back in place and it is back in good working condition.

Underneath of the circuit board showing the re-soldered battery contact.

This is not the first time I have repaired remote controls and I thought I should pass on to readers a little info on fixing a problem which often presents as remotes get a bit old. On the remote are the rubber function buttons which when manufactured have a metallic pasted-on surface which when pressed, contacts a corresponding part of the circuit board completing a circuit for that particular function. When the remote gets old and has been used lots, that metallic surface on the rubber button deteriorates. I have glued small pieces of aluminium foil where the metallic paste is/was and if the glue is one which will stick to that rubber surface, things are back to normal. Fiddly work, but most rewarding when you are finished. Don't be shy about having a go....there is nothing inside the remote to bite you. If your remote isn't easily opened (secured by screws) then it is a bit of a fiddle getting inside it....see here http://www.ehow.com/how_5834201_open-tv-remote-control.html

The rubber buttons with alfoil glued on...it works! These fixes are born out of a need to save money and it is hard to change that attitude in old age.

Bring out your dead 2012

This week is Bring Out Your Dead in this area and all manner of discards are put on the verge for council collection. My neighbours had a huge pile of stuff, but that is almost all gone, taken by the bower birds who drive through the district looking for goodies. I must confess to grabbing a very nice late model Canon printer from a pile of techo stuff a few doors from my place. I got it home and found that the ink carriage was jammed because someone had tried to remove a cartridge and the printer decided to return the carriage to its start position with the cartridge not properly seated and protruding causing the jam. A ten minute job and the printer is running like a Buick.
Yesterday Helen and James emptied out a fish pond and cleaned up the tangle of stringy algae and fungal growth. When the pond was empty we noticed some decidedly nasty looking bugs and they were removed from the pond. Only later did we realise that they were the nymph of the Dragonfly. Helen was a bit upset because the Dragonfly is one of her favourites. The Dragonfly breeding season is probably not yet over and we may yet see some homegrown Dragonflies. When I was young in the 1950s, Dragonflies were colloquially called Horse Stingers. Doubt if they do sting and if they did they would probably sting people rather than horses. PS: Google says that they don't sting but can bite.

Helen recently invited me over to dinner and she was trying to replicate a dish; one course served at her cousin Katherine's wedding in San Francisco. The dish was created by the chef Alan Wong.

I am not sure of the name of the dish but it was lovely.

It is chilled tomato soup with a Parmesan chip and toasted Kalua Pork sandwich. Delicious!

The Boer War

My cousin Val and I have had an interest in family for many years and one thing which interested me greatly was my grandfather and his brothers' service in South Africa during the Boer War. I have his discharge papers from 1902 which noted a gratuity of Five pounds. Was that a reasonable reward for serving King and Country?

All the documents are written in copperplate handwriting by the same person. Even the signatures are written by the same person...not my grandfather. We have wondered if it was because many volunteers would have been illiterate? In Papua New Guinea in the early 1960s I witnessed labour recruitment for plantations where illiterate natives touched a pen and the recruiting person wrote their name. Was that what it was?Click image to enlarge

On reflection I came to the conclusion that the original documents are kept in the National Archives in Canberra and the documents given to the servicemen were copies.....hand written by a scribe in copperplate in a time before photocopiers were even thought of.

My grandfather and his brothers returned to Australia at a time when it was thought the war was over and re-enlisted when it flared up again. It must have been very exciting stuff, or living in country Australia at the time must have been extremely boring.

Grandfather and his brothers were in a unit called Kitcheners Fighting Scouts. I am sorry I didn't talk to him more about his experiences in S.A..

Harry 'Breaker' Morant was recruited from South Australia and along with another Australian was executed for taking part in the murder of a couple of Boers and a German priest who had witnessed the killings. At the time and even today, it is felt that 'The Breaker' and his mate were executed to placate the Germans who were thinking of joining the war on the side of the Boers. Recent attempts to clear their names have failed.

Bees and blowies

About a year ago I had a 'tradesman' extend a kitchen exhaust fan duct through the roof and finish it off with a 'Chinaman's hat'. As summer came on, every time I cooked a curry or some other food which had a strong smell, blowflies came down the duct and even got through the fan blades and mesh filter to get into my kitchen. So I decided to convert the hat to a beekeeper's hat and fashioned a screen of flywire around it to keep the flies out. When I went up on the roof (silly old man) I noticed that the tradie, an Irishman, had not bothered to position the Chinaman's hat and the duct so that it would be standing vertically. It doesn't really matter as it cannot be see by anyone else, but it is sloppy workmanship. I will have to see how long before the screen clogs up with grease.
The Irish Leaning Tower of Chinaman Beekeeper

I have cooked a curry since I attached the flywire and it seems to be working.

Daughter Helen and James came around for dinner a couple of nights ago and Helen spied a Turkish loaf of bread I had bought. When she asked me what it was like I had to tell her that it was a bit stodgy. She then told me that it was a Home Bake pack and I should have cooked it. Live and Learn!

Helen has had only one offer of relief teaching as yet...this morning. By the time she picked up the phone the Deputy Principal at the school had hung up. She immediately rang back to say that she was happy to do the job, but the message went to the school switchboard and the deputy had already returned to his office and missed the call. Helen also missed the job. She is not desperate for cash yet and I am able to help out if things do get that way.

The Spudshed

On Sunday afternoon Helen, James and I drove to Jandakot Airport and visited the 'Spud Shed'.....along with about 1,000 other shoppers. The large carpark was almost full and inside it was a struggle to manoeuvre a shopping trolley around between produce and shoppers who looked like Myer sale-day fiends. This particular Spudshed is open 24/7 because it is on Commonwealth land surrounding the airport and does not have to comply with state trading regulations. I guess if I were to return to the Spudshed it would be at 2am when things would probably be less frenetic. OK, there are some bargains there.....but the checkout queues are long and I noticed some folks getting a bit 'testy' when people in the queue sent partners off to continue shopping.

A couple of observations......The meat is so so. I bought some casserole beef to make a curry. When I opened it at home it had more than its fair share of gristle and ropy bits. Somehow, such a crowded bargain-basement establishment attracts cheats. We noticed fruit and nuts being consumed before arriving at the checkout and the trays of mangoes were being re-packed by customers who wanted only the really good ones despite large notices requesting that they not be swapped around.

I'll spend the extra few bucks and shop locally.

My newish car is now due for its first service @ 1500 kilometres. I am still having problems with what I now believe, is a fuel delivery problem at low speed when taking off. I noticed that when the tank is almost empty the problem is much worse, so when I deliver the car to the service centre I will ensure that the tank is low so that the mechanics may experience the problem. Previously I have not been able to show the service centre what happens and they have suggested that I am just an old fart and there is absolutely nothing wrong with the car. I will arrange for the car to stay overnight if the problem does not occur during the service. Morning startup usually presents the problem.

Relief teaching

The school year has started and my daughter Helen has not been appointed to a school for the first time in seven years. She is a 'Temp' and has not secured permanent status with the W.A. Education Department. Becoming a permanent employee with the Education Department these days is quite a business. There are basically three methods available to get permanency. One is to 'go bush' to a country town for a few years. This path has some disadvantages because the preferred country postings on the coast are usually filled by teachers who have become permanent residents in these places. If she were to get a wheatbelt town posting, there is also the chance that after the usual three years there it would be difficult to get a placement back in the city. There are many teachers in this situation.

Another method is to opt to teach for three years at a disadvantaged, hard to staff, school which is not a great option. And the last avenue is to apply to one of the newly created 'Independent' government schools. These schools can recruit staff independently of the Education Department's staffing department. I imagine there are cases of 'friends' getting employment at lots of these schools.

Helen has delivered her resume to around 40 schools within 12 kilometres of her house putting her name down for relief teaching. At the beginning of the school year there is not much work for relief teachers as most staff do not take 'sickies' for a few weeks into the term. She should start to get work later in Term 1.

I had a most pleasant visit by my cousin Ann and husband Doug from BC in Canada. They stayed overnight and we had a BBQ with daughter Helen, hubby James and brother Graham. Yesterday we went for lunch at the Fremantle fishing boat harbour and had a drive around the interesting spots around Fremantle and up the River to Mosman's Bay. They visit Australia about every 2 -3 years.

Incitement to riot

I don't really watch major sporting events such as the Australian Open (tennis), but I did catch part of a few games on TV. I am afraid that I had to flip channels when the two Russian gals started the loud...what can you call it?.....grunting?

Another thing I noticed was that Novak Djokovic the Serbian champ relied heavily on help from God. A number of times he did the Sign of The Cross during the match(es) and after winning one round hauled out his cross and kissed it looking skyward. I would have thought God would be pretty busy helping people less fortunate than him.

The Australian Federal Police have decided that there was no crime committed by anyone in the little fracas in Canberra which caused the Federal Police to need to rescue the PM and the leader of the opposition from a rather nasty mob of Aboriginal activists. The Feds don't think that the person who rang the activists with the aim of stirring them up did anything wrong. The Opposition thinks that there is a case to investigate what was actually said by whom. Seems reasonable to me. I think the possible charge is incitement to riot.

Australia Day

One of the two fridges I have has been icing up in the fridge half and I suspected that I needed a replacement thermostat. A local refrigeration man turned up and agreed with my diagnosis and proceeded to remove covers and dig out the thermostat. He told me he didn't have an Hitachi part in stock and would have to order one at a cost of $440. Ouch!

Whilst showing me the thermostat mechanism, he found some ice in the door that is supposed to close when temperatures change. He removed the ice, tested the mechanism attached to the thermostat by placing it in the freezer section and hooray it now works...at a cost of $150.

I understand thermostats, but have never really thought about how they control temperatures in the fridge. Quite simple really. The freezer compartment is consistently very cold (frozen) and the fridge section is joined to the freezer by a small duct which can be opened or closed by a mechanical door operated by the thermostat. If the fridge section gets a little warmer, the thermostat opens the door to the freezer duct and allows cold air the enter the fridge from the freezer. See simple isn't it?

Australia Day has come and gone and there was a bit of argy-bargy in Canberra near the Aboriginal tent 'Embassy'. The Prime Minister and leader of the opposition were at an official function at a reception centre nearby. The previous day the leader of the opposition was interviewed and asked what he thought of the Aboriginal Embassy. He replied that he could understand why the embassy was set up in 1972 but a lot of things have changed for the better since then and it is probably time to move on.

A government staffer who has since resigned, rang someone who passed Tony Abbot's answer on to the 'embassy' and a riot ensued. The PM and Abbot were surrounded by security and Federal Police and there was a lot of pushing and shoving and abuse from the mob before the PM and Tony Abbott were secured in a car and drove off. Yesterday there was a burning of the Australian flag at the 'embassy' and footage showed young aborigines spitting on the burning flag. Glad I'm not their school teacher. I have connections to Aboriginal groups through distribution of computers, so I cannot comment. I do know that the government staffer should be named. Political dirty tricks...let's hope the PM didn't approve of that phone call.

Eleven months today

Today marks eleven months since Joan died. I have noticed that elderly people (and I now admit to being one) have a propensity to weep at thoughts and events which previously would not have affected them. I'm one of them...not overtly, but Joan's presence in our home, in the form of her many artefacts, photos etc often move me to a few tears as is happening as I write this.

Years ago when I was a young (22 year old) single teacher at an isolated school in the Gulf of Papua I observed a daily mourning ritual of a young man who had lost his brother. At approximately the same time each afternoon this fellow would suddenly start howling loudly and beating his chest in front of other villagers and often me. The performance went on for probably no more than five minutes and he would suddenly stop and carry on as if nothing had happened. I cannot recall how long this went on for and I guess it was a traditional thing in this language group. I was Teacher in charge at Arehava Primary School for three years and as I lived in a village, saw much of the traditional family life around me. I wrote of one of these incidents here.

This morning I rang the Public Trustee to find out what the delay has been in processing Joan's estate. It seems that there is no reason it was not processed weeks ago and I received a promise, one of several over the last couple of months, that it would be finalised by this Friday. Maybe.

My mother was born in Narrogin and brought up on a farm at Toolibin 30 miles east of Narrogin. I remember her talking about all the neighbours and one family, the Hoyles was often mentioned. Some time ago amongst mother's photographs I found a nice pic of three of the Hoyle kids, probably taken around 1921 or so. There is Sally, Minnie and Dick. Dick went to war in New Guinea and was killed. He is buried at Lae Military Cemetery. Yesterday I had an urge to see if I could find some descendents of the surviving two in the photographs. I rang my cousin Val to see if she recalled anything about the Hoyles and surprisingly she did in fact; she was a flowergirl at Minnie's wedding. Next I looked up the Whitepages Online and found a few phone numbers for Minnie's married name living around Wickepin which is quite close to Toolibin. Bingo! I talked with a couple of folks and have emailed the cleaned-up photo to them. Hope to continue contact and find out what happened to the Hoyles. Val is, of course, very interested and if anything of great interest emerges we will drive to Wickepin to meet up with the descendents.

Lock Family reunion

My cousin Ann and her husband Doug are visiting Western Australia from BC (Canada) and the remaining Locks were summonsed to a family gathering under the trees near the Swan River at Crawley Bay.

We are all getting a bit old. Aunty Violet is 95 and still looking pretty good even thought she needed reminding of most of the names of the assembled. For some strange reason she remembered my name. Must have been something in my past that she aint gonna forget.

I took a few pics of the group with a remote control and being the photographer I am, suggested that everyone remove their sunglasses. Everyone thought that was reasonable and I should have remembered to remove mine.....one way to stand out in a crowd.

A good get-together with lots of stories told.

An old fella

I went shopping today for food and as I approached the checkout I thought about an old joke which perfectly suited my situation. In the joke, a bloke fronts up to the checkout and presents his shopping....one piece of steak, a small tub of yoghurt, two bananas, an apple and a half pound of butter. As the checkout gal is bagging his purchases she asks...'Are you single?' The customer replies....'yes, I guess you worked that out by my small purchase?' She replies...'No, it was because you're bloody ugly'.

I had a rude awakening today when I purchased a packet of envelopes at the newsagent next door to the Post Office and sent a letter to a person. Later at home I realised that I had left the package of new envelopes on the desk at the Post Office. I didn't think there was much chance of the package still being there, but returned to the PO and asked at the counter. The woman behind the counter produced the packet saying that a lady had handed it in and described the fellow who left it there as an elderly gentleman. Bugger! First time I have been described as elderly!

Solar Power Array

I recently received my power bill for the last 66 days. The solar panel array is paying off as well as the fact that I am living alone and watching my power use. The bill amounted to $2.80!

The solar subsidy in this state, Western Australia, has been drastically reduced by the government. People who bought a solar setup after the subsidy cut-off point receive only seven cents for each kilowatt fed back into the grid. I, Helen and James and brother Graham signed up when the subsidy was 40c a kilowatt for electricity fed back into the grid. And as you can see it gives a good return on investment for the $1900 outlay for the panels. The subsidy is for 10 years and at this rate I should pay mine off in a few years.

There are a few tricks to getting the best results. Do washing and ironing and use the dishwasher etc when the sun is not shining and get as many units back into the grid @ 40c whilst the sun is out. Use the grid power for those power hungry jobs @ 4c a unit. Makes sense!

Today Helen finalised the Bali accommodation bookings and I paid by PayPal. All done. Helen and James may have house sitters for the 8 days we are away. I am not sure about my place...maybe talk brother Graham in dropping in every 3 or 4 days to check on things and crank up the reticulation.

If you want to check out the accommodation see it out here.

Woody Allen and the Zydecats

Helen, my daughter, spent Saturday booking accommodation and airfares to Bali in early April. I am included in the passenger list and I guess that is testimony that I haven't worn out my welcome with her and James. Helen did the flight and hotel deals on the net and we are booked to fly out of Perth on the 8^th of April and spend 8 days in a very nice resort with our own swimming pool. It cost us a bit extra to get a unit with two bedrooms but it looks very nice and it is not near the 'younguns' and their noisy partying.

Also, yesterday, I had a phone call from our son in Melbourne who had had a call from a friend who is renting the unit below mine in Orelia. It seems that the young couple renting my unit went out leaving a cutting board on the stove top. The agent tells me that the new stove needs replacing, but there is little other damage. I have landlords insurance and hope that will cover the new stove and a sparky to wire it in. I will find out more of Monday.

My brain is playing with my body. A couple of days ago I was slicing up some nice hot red chillies for a fried rice when brain told me my nose was itchy...result; extreme nose burn for a couple of hours. This is not the only time brain has set me up. Every time I attend an auction I get a bad case of the itches and end up attracting the attention of the auctioneer just as the bids rocket skywards. Everyone then looks at me as I wave the bid off....'Idiot!'

My brother Graham has had a small problem with his recently purchased new VW Passat. He is unhappy with the ride and VW has made a few attempts to rectify the problem He has had new tyres fitted, a rear suspension strut replaced and alignment of front and rear wheels, but he feels that at the price he paid for the VW it should be a smoother ride. It reached a point where VW simply told him that it was as good as it is going to be....sort of like a bad human prognosis. Graham traded the VW in on a more expensive BMW to be picked up tomorrow. Hope that runs along nice and smoothly. Let you know later.

Sunday evening: brother Graham collected me in his VW, soon to be replaced by a BMW and we taxied from his place to Fremantle to a cinema to view Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris. The introductory scenes were wonderful and I wanted to share them with my Joan as we had been to all the places in our last trip to Europe. The movie was a Woody Allen classic.....some obnoxious characters and some wonderful characters. You must see it.

After the movie we went to Clancy's Fish Bar which hosts the local band The Zydecats. Wonderful! Young and old people getting with it and enjoying old Rock. I could see a great photo opportunity and during a break asked the band leader if it would be OK to do some photos....he was happy about that and next Sunday I will front with my Nikon and try and capture the ambiance.

I am at last feeling like there is a life out there.

Taxiing home via Grahams place, I struck up a conversation with the Somalian taxi driver. His situation wasn't too bad and in fact he had two wives, one in New Zealand and one in India. He is a Muslim Somalian and I hope that our conversation went some some way to show that there are moderate non-Muslims in this country.

Counting back

Yesterday I erected a bit of shadecloth over Helen's garden tank....and so, was invited to stay for dinner. Chicken Tandoori and salad. Nice! Still haven't worn out my welcome there!

Scam warning. This scam is a universal scam which has done the rounds in Canada, the U.S. And Britain and now popping up in Australia and no doubt other countries. The email message purports to be from the Australian Tax Office and tells of tax refund of $773.80 and all one has to do to get the cash is to fill out the genuine looking PDF claim form giving all your bank details and send it to a (false) email address. In all these scam documents there are inevitably a couple of tell-tale spelling mistakes. One in this email message is the spelling of 'Governament'. Snopes is your friend for scams etc. See Snopes here for details about this tax scam in the U.S., and here for a warning from ScamNet in Western Australia about the Aus Tax Scam.

This morning I drove to the local Ford dealership where Helen was delivering her car for a service. When I collected her we went to a newish small supermarket closeby. When we did a small shop we fronted up to the checkout where a woman was using a calculator instead of the checkout register. She explained that overnight thieves had come in through the roof and cut wires thinking that they had disabled the security system and all they disabled were the checkouts. In any case they had lowered themselves into a locked room and had to climb back up and out. The checkout gal was having quite a time of it with a young lad dashing to check the shelf price of purchases per kilo; her using a calculator to price the amount purchased, totalling the purchases up and then doing a subtraction from the amount tendered to calculate the change. The days of counting back are long gone.

Albany Writers' Circle

Joy, a long time friend of us both, loaned me a small booklet of poetry and prose from residents of the South West city of Albany. The booklet contains 32 pieces from 20 writers.
Two of the pieces were amazing coincidences. One written by Joy's sister told about her friend Miriam...her child, husband and her passion for gardening. Reading it I suddenly realised that Miriam was our next door neighbour in Bicton for some 43 years. It seems that Joy's sister Norma was a close friend of Miri (as we knew her). Her husband Jack was deaf and mute and wrote all conversation on a small pad. Miri was a strange woman; very hippy for the time and quite difficult to approach. I wrote previously about the Williams family, the husband Jack and Mrs Sabodka the bejewelled WW2 refugee boarder.

The second coincidence was a piece written by Betty Kane about her marriage to a U.S. Sailor based in Fremantle during WW2. As it turns out, Betty is the grandmother of the girls in the local group 'The Waifs' who wrote and perform The Bridal Train, a song telling of the train taking W.A. war brides across Australia to Sydney to join the American liner which took them to their new home and husbands. The Bridal Train tells the story of their grandmother Betty. Nice! If you haven't heard The Bridal Train, you can find it on YouTube.

Our power meter is outside the house in a locked box. Western Power reads the meter every 45 days or so and at the last two meter reads the reader had difficulty unlocking the box. His/her master key wouldn't open the box. Fortunately, I was home on both occasions and was able to open the box with my key. If I was not home, Western Power would estimate the power usage based of previous bills. The large hardware chain, Bunnings, is a provider of these locks and I purchased one about 6 months ago, so I took it back explaining that only I could open the meter box. With a bit of argy bargy they eventually replaced my lock with a new one. Hope they don't give my old one to another customer.

At a recent gathering of friends we, being oldies, talked about times past. One topic was worn out shoes, something that doesn't seem to occur as much these days. All the males at the gathering could remember shoes with holes in the soles. Ralph told us that he often had holes in his shoes and could, when stepping on a sixpenny piece ( a 'zac'), tell whether the coin was heads or tails. Cardboard was a popular shoe life extender; not so comfortable when wet.

My brother has been single for many years and has long ago adjusted his food purchasing and cooking to suit one person. I am not at that stage yet. I tend to over buy and cook and end up with plastic containers in the freezer which I often end up dumping in my compost bin. I know I should divide meat portions etc and freeze them. I will try that soon.

Yesterday I went to John's nursing home to cut his hair. It was a bit difficult as he was asleep and didn't respond to requests to bend his head etc. I eventually got the job done...hair, ears and eyebrows. He looked good when I finished. Sad that he had no idea that I was there. His wife, Joy, has the same result most times she visits. If there was any saving grace in Joan's death, it was that she left us with sound mind with no need to be locked up in intensive care for years.

Easyfix computer glitch

Helen and James invited me to their place for a few drinks and a meal last night. It is always nice to have them think of me. I don't want to wear out my welcome and fortunately it seems, to me at least, that I haven't done so yet. I think I am perceptive enough to recognise when, if or when, that stage is reached.

This morning I had an appointment to look at a printer I had supplied to a middle aged woman. I had previously set up a computer for her a couple of years ago and recently added a printer at the request of her welfare carer. She rang me a few days ago saying that the printer isn't working so I arranged a time to go and look at it. It was a simple fix.....the type I like. I found she had jammed far too many sheets of paper not in the loading slot, but between the slot and the paper support.

She told me that she is doing a computer course. I hope she has told the instructor she is using a Mac at home.

Goodbye Bohemia

I am home waiting for a 'skip' or dumpster, depending on what breed of English you use. It is to get rid of four trees that have been giving me and my neighbours grief for a couple of years. The trees are Bohemia (Acacia cuspidifolia) coloquially called 'wait awhile tree', although I have never seen or heard them called anything but Bohemias.

They have largish leather-like leaves and skull damaging spear-like seed pods. The leaves take years to break down. It has phyllodes rather than true leaves

A couple of years ago Fiona our neighbour mentioned the leaf and seed problem but pleaded with me not to remove them. A couple of days ago she said the they had changed their mind and would like them 'trimmed'. Chainsaw Kev fixed that. The skip is a 6m3 one and I have been busy cutting branches into into smaller sizes hoping that it will fit in the bin. The neighbours will contribute to the cost of the skip and get rid of some their tree lopping if it fits in the skip.

For those who would give me grief for 'trimming' my trees I can offer...FREE; a box of seed pods so that you can grow your own Bohemia.

The skip has been delivered and Fiona and her young daughter Nikita helped load it with both my stuff and some of hers. All done and ready for collection. Thanks girls for your help.

6m3 Bin delivered

Will it all fit?

All done and ready for collection.

Fishy fare for the end of 2011

'The Gang'; the usual suspects, or whatever we should be called, gathered at my place yesterday evening. There were seven of us....two had passed on and one is in care at a nursing home. I think we are all hoping to be around next NYE, but who knows? We raised our glasses to ourselves and those no longer able to attend.

Front..Wendy, Margaret Carole Rear... Kev, Dennis, Joy and Ralph

My prediction that there would be copy-cat car burnings didn't hold up....nothing reported. In Western Australia there were a couple of parties out of control, a few arrests, but no injuries. The cops were pretty pleased with things. Strike that, reverse it. There were six cars torched in a Sydney car park last night. I knew we could do it!

Helen and James are spending the long weekend with friends at Margaret River a pretty wine growing region. I must revisit Margarets myself soon. Martin, our son, rang today from Melbourne. He is feeling a little rough after NYE celebrations last night, but happy to be back on the payroll at Coles.

My new car has a fault which is intermittent. I cannot cause it to happen and so the dealer has said that it is perfectly OK. I hate being treated as an elderly idiot. One fellow when writing down the symptoms of the fault asked me a series of questions more suited to an 18 year old. Not only that but he was addressing me in a loud, can you hear me old fart, voice.

I had to stop him and inform him that I am not deaf and I have a wealth of experience with machinery and have even built two cars from scratch. That shut him up.

I will leave the car overnight with them and if they test drive it several times each day the symptoms should show up.

I didn't win the $31M lotto game last night. As Charlie in Willy Wonka said...'I just thought you would want to know that'.